Annie returned with Daisy, who was in her pajamas, as she was all day every day at that time. I watched the DI’s face as she turned to greet Daisy, and I saw something strange flash across her features.
“Hello, Daisy,” she said. “Sorry to disturb your lesson. This won’t take long.” She introduced herself and explained why she was there, and then very slowly she pulled a photograph out of her bag and slid it across the table toward Daisy. She stared deeply at Daisy, watching her reaction. “This is a lady called Claire Connolly. Do you feel as if you might ever have seen her before?”
Daisy touched the edge of the photograph and stared at it thoughtfully. “I don’t know. I mean, maybe? She looks, like, a tiny bit familiar, I suppose? But I don’t think I know her. No.”
“Thank you, Daisy. And tell me, what’s your date of birth?”
“Third of October 2006.”
“So, you’re… thirteen and a half?”
“Yes.”
DI Brooks sighed and placed her hands together on the top of the table. She turned back to me and to Annie. “So, here’s the thing,” she said. “I’ve done some research, and I can see that Daisy is enrolled at Waterside Academy in Islington and that she attended St. John’s Primary School in Hampstead and that she is registered with a GP surgery. But Daisy does not have a birth certificate or a passport. I could find no record of her birth at any hospital in the greater London area. And I’m confused, to be honest. Is there any reason, Mrs. Black, that your daughter didn’t register Daisy’s birth?”
I turned to Annie, looking for a flicker of something, but her face was smooth and impassive. “My daughter gave birth at home. There were complications regarding the baby’s father, complications regarding Jessamine herself. She kept putting it off. And off. And off. I offered to take the baby myself, numerous times, but she wouldn’t let me. And then suddenly Daisy was a year old and still not registered, so we just skipped it and registered her at school using her NHS card.”
DI Brooks tapped her pen up and down twice against her notepad. “Right,” she said. “I see. And may I ask, who is Daisy’s father? Mr. Tucker and I have already established it’s not him.”
Annie sucked her breath in through her nostrils. “DI Brooks, I really do think this is a very peculiar line of questioning, not to mention somewhat inappropriate. I cannot see any reason why you would want to know who Daisy’s father was, or indeed what on earth any of this has got to do with the missing girl?”
I saw the DI realize she’d reached the limit of her unconventional questioning and pull back. “Of course. That’s fine. You can go back to your lesson now, Daisy. Thank you.”
When Daisy had returned to her bedroom, DI Brooks turned her attention back to Annie. “At the time of Claire’s disappearance, when the original investigating team was going door to door, they spoke to a neighbor of yours called…” She consulted her notes again. “Sara Aalto?”
Annie nodded in recognition of the name. “Yes. I remember her.”
“She told the officer that on the day of Claire’s disappearance—”
“Potential day of her disappearance,” Annie interjected. “You did just tell me that she wasn’t reported as missing for five days. So who knows when she actually went missing.”
I inhaled sharply. What was Annie doing? It sounded to me that she was laying out her defense. A chill passed through me.
“Well, perhaps, but Ms. Aalto told us she was aware of someone at the back fence of your property, of movement, of a female voice. She then said she must have been mistaken, that it was just you and your family eating lunch in your back garden. But I did wonder why that was never followed up at the time, and I did, crazy as it sounds, spend some time in the area behind your house last week, trying to get a feel for what might have been Claire Connolly’s last movements. And amazingly, I found something. A paper bag containing a plastic plectrum and some guitar strings. And not just that but a receipt that I had analyzed and that turned out to be dated the day she disappeared. So I’m now wondering afresh about that day and the voice that Sara Aalto heard, and I’d really like the opportunity to carry out a proper search of your property and the garden.” She looked firmly and squarely at Annie and added, “A full-scale search.”
Annie recoiled. “What on earth are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting, Mrs. Black, that Claire Connolly somehow found her way onto your property that day, and then somehow never found her way back.”
“And you think thatwehad something to do with that?”
“Well, maybe not you, but someone who lived here at the time. Your ex-husband—”
“He’s not myex-husband. We’re still married. Just separated.”
“Fine. Your husband. Your son…” She consulted her notebook again. “Jasper? Who no longer lives here, is that correct?”
“He left home fourteen years ago.”
“And where would I find him now?”
“I’m afraid I have no idea. He left quite suddenly, and I haven’t heard from him since.”
DI Brooks nodded. “And your husband? How would we be able to get in contact with him?”
“Again. I have no idea. He left one day, and that was that.”
DI Brooks paused then, her pen suspended above her notebook, as if trying to piece together a puzzle in her mind.
